


We Take Care Of Our Own

by virginianwolfsnake



Category: Series of Unfortunate Events - Lemony Snicket
Genre: Gen, Siblings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-01
Updated: 2017-01-01
Packaged: 2018-09-14 00:22:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9148561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/virginianwolfsnake/pseuds/virginianwolfsnake
Summary: The young Snicket siblings recover from the loss of their parents. Written for the Tumblr prompt: "You were meant to be watching him!"





	

“You were meant to be watching him!”

Jacques knows that the accusatory tone in his voice is likely to get him nowhere with his sister, but it bursts out of him anyway, against all his better judgement. His father used to say that if Jacques could get his temper under control he’d make a wonderful police officer, perhaps a detective, maybe a private investigator. But he’s only thirteen, and he’s still working on it.

Kit shoots him a look he knows well. It’s the same look their mother occasionally gave their father if he did something she particularly disapproved of, and it’s a look Jacques has now seen so many times that it has lost all of its intended venom.

“You _are_ joking?” she shoots back, eyes narrowed underneath her rectangular glasses. Twins or not, Kit is currently a whole head taller than Jacques, and much more grown up, and sometimes it’s difficult for Jacques or anyone else to remember that she _isn’t_ the older sibling.

She already has the authoritative tone to her voice that their father sometimes did, and she was the only one who didn’t cry _that afternoon_. He and Lemony had huddled together under a blanket and wept, and Kit had laid there next to them and stared at the ceiling, dry-eyed, and the next morning she wasn’t the same. It was only a couple of weeks ago. It feels like forever.

It doesn’t matter anyway. His mother always told him that he might take longer to grow, but he would get there in the end.

“He’s a child, not an idiot,” Kit snaps, returning promptly to her book and looking decidedly unconcerned. “Besides, it’s _Lemony_. You know what he’s like.”

His father used to worry himself almost sick over Lemony - when they lost Lemony at the museum, when they lost Lemony at the Royal Gardens, when they lost Lemony at the Vineyard. _Only a toddler, and already a troublemaker_. His mother once joked that she would need eyes all over the city to keep track of him.

( _That was before they knew that there were already eyes all over the city_ )

“What if something happens to him?”

Kit snorts. “Has it ever?”

She’s right - of course she’s right, she always is. But there’s an awful feeling in his stomach, like he’s swallowed a whole box of lead bullets, and his heart thumps in his ears and he wants to know where his brother is.

“You can’t just let him wander off,” he berates her, crossly, his mother’s voice blending with his own.

“Calm down,” Kit says, like it’s nothing. “It’s fine.”

“It isn’t fine,” Jacques says, and his heartbeat is getting louder and louder and faster and faster.

Finally, mercifully, Kit closes her book.

“Why are you making such a fuss?” she asks, looking vaguely bemused by his behaviour. Jacques feels like he’s going a million miles an hour, can’t catch his breath, and Kit just sits there with her legs crossed looking the very picture of relaxation, and he feels a thousand times worse every second he looks at her. “Lemony _always_ does this; always has, always will.”

“But it’s different now,” he says, eventually, in little more than a croak. He doesn’t mean to say it, doesn’t _want_ to, knows Kit doesn’t want to talk about that, but he can’t hold it in anymore.

Her movements change all of a sudden, from fluid and relaxed to stiff, mechanical, like she’s just got a nasty electric shock.

“It’s different now,” Jacques repeats, voice wavering. “Isn’t it? That’s why -”

“Enough,” Kit interrupts, fingers over her mouth, jaw clenched tight in between the words. 

“They’re gone,” Jacques says, louder this time. “So now it’s _our_ responsibility.”

“Alright, alright,” she waves him off, but she isn’t jovial now. “If you’re so worried –”

“But it isn’t _just this_ ,” Jacques blurts, and suddenly his voice is back, up to its normal volume and _louder_ , over the thundering in his ears. “They’re _gone_ , Kit, and it’s just us. It’s _just us!_ ”

Kit flinches as though he’s struck her. “That’s enough,” she says, spine stiff, one fist clenched and the other hand hovering at her temple as though she’s resisting the urge to cover her ears.

“ _We take care of our own_ ,” Jacques sobs, and that’s the first time he realizes that his vision’s blurred and there are tears on his cheeks. “She said – she _always_ said –”

Before his knees give out, Kit is suddenly on her feet with her arms around him, so tightly he can barely breathe. His head fits underneath the curve of her chin, because she’s as tall as their mother was, and he sobs and sobs into the scarf she borrowed that day, the scarf that still smells like home. When he quietens, he notices that her shoulders shaking too.

It’s only after a few long moments that they notice another pair of arms, twined around Jacques’ waist and Kit’s hips. Jacques lets out a grateful, shaky breath, and Kit turns her head in the opposite direction for the briefest of moments to wipe her eyes, and they both lay a hand on each of their younger brother’s shoulders.

“Nothing has changed,” Kit says eventually, sounding so strong and so sure, like the woman she _isn’t_ yet, no matter how hard she tries to pretend. “We’ll _always_ take care of each other.”


End file.
